Applying the Fire Hose of Information

I returned late Sunday night from the L program. I was not in a good place physically, and honestly not all that good mentally either. What I thought might be allergies all weekend turned into a full on unpleasant cold at the PHX airport as I waited for my late flight to take off. As I flew my ears started to hurt and I was so miserable the rest of the night. 

I worked from home on Monday to save my coworkers from my illness and so I got to ride TC for a normal amount of time. I did feel better that day and at this point, I just have a lingering cough. 

Absolutely bursting from knowledge over the weekend, I actually did manage to have a good ride without completely flinging myself off our pathway. I rode in the covered arena and there were things that I really liked and things that I realized were going on that I hadn't noticed before. 

Best pony

New realizations:

TC doesn't want to connect to the left rein, but I think he is connected because I pull on it so much. I started to really notice when he was connected vs when I was just filling in the gap in the connection by taking back on the rein.  

TC's lazy leg isn't his left hind, it's his right hind. It doesn't want to push as much and so it pops off the ground early. At the program, the instructor REALLY emphasized the need for two even hind legs (crookedness is apparent in all movements, so I'm basically giving away a point per movement, that's 10%!). I've known that TC has that unevenness in his pushing, but this is where it really needs to start going away. 

LOOK AT THIS CAT, he's so cute

All the tiny little bobbles need to go away. It makes a huge difference in each movement AND in the collectives if TC doesn't need bits of communication like a slight wiggle of my inside ring finger or a poke with the spur to keep him on the left rein. A 9 is attainable even for horses who are 7 movers, we just insist on riding too much to earn them. 

Along with that last note, I began to notice all the weird shit I do to keep things together in the harder movements. We are not showing ease of movements in the simple changes or the counter canter. He labors a bit and I move my body around to accommodate him. It's not ideal and I need to continue to build his strength. IMO we're coming into this show with very weak canter work. I'm not expecting more than a 6 on either of those movements. We are weak at this level. I'm choosing to go anyway, and it's not like I'm beating him on a regular basis to get the movements out of him, but this is borderline unfair to him and he's going to get himself a lot of sugar and maybe a trail ride or two next weekend. 

Early morning ride before I left for the program

Tuesday I also got a good ride in and I chose to test ride again. Again, I don't normally test ride this much coming into a show but I really don't know how things are going to go and it's making me nervous. Plus, I haven't had a clean 2-3 yet. 

This time we had a beautiful 2-1! His canter medium was stellar, trot medium was on point, shoulder-in felt free and steady, halt was a bit too close to the rail so hitting it disrupted the rhythm but whatevs, the transitions were all so good, the ten meter circle is easy and fun. My main complaint was that he's anticipating a lot in the walk work and ruining his beautiful walk. So we're going to walk on contact a ton this week. 

We got through the trot tour at 2-3 and through the walk work and I did the stupid thing of thinking "is this going to be our first clean 2-3?" and then he BOLTED down the long side in the canter medium. He just gets so excited about them. 

He got in trouble but we kept going, had a good serpentine and simple change, then bolted in the second serpentine and then bolted coming up centerline. Fun! It was mostly because they were working with a tractor near the arena, so I get it, but still frustrating. 

Pls don't bolt in the medium canter thx

I took him into the covered and checked on the walk pirouettes. They feel slow and sticky but they're solid. I just can't feel his hind legs, remember? So I just have to trust that they're fine and not override them like an idiot. 

Then we cantered a bit and did a ton of counter canter. I don't like over schooling it because of Third level, but I really want this to go well. He was a good boy about it. A few solid simple changes later and we walked a bunch on contact to get him to stop anticipating. Then we were done! 

Generally I love how he's feeling. I'm able to ride the canter in a way I've never experienced on him (at least, not consistently) before. His trot is active and rideable as well. I think Tracey is really onto something and I can't wait to see her after this show and throw everything I've got into transforming his gaits.

Feather-Induced Test-Ruining Leaping

I signed up for the show at the end of this month. I was feeling kind of questionable about it but decided to just do it. I should have tried harder to get into the same show a year ago and show these tests, there's no reason to wait any longer. They just aren't going to ride any better.

Well, they could ride a bit better. We test rode this past weekend and it was fine. It was fine. I mean, we would have been eliminated from the 2-3, which sucks because I honestly think that might be our better test.

Still got time for wandering

The 2-1 rode fine, there's really not much to it. The mediums are on the shorter diagonal, the canter mediums are only 3/4 of the way down the long side, there's no walk pirouettes or canter to walk transitions, and it's just shoulder-in. But at the same time, some of the elements still were tricky, mostly because there aren't a ton of movements to make up for some of our weak stuff. His walk to canter transition just isn't as through as it needs to be, and because we've schooled the simple changes enough, he thinks about doing them during the counter canter pattern.

But generally I was really happy with the test, being a bit easy isn't a problem, but I do believe a clean 2-1 will result in a lower score than a clean 2-3. Not that my horse is a clean-test kind of horse.

The 2-3 is a much better test for us when things go well... His counter canter loop is excellent unless he gets off balance on the right lead and goes to swap in front. I can hold it but it feels slightly precarious at times. Whatever. A fully confirmed counter canter before flying changes can get you stuck at Second level indefinitely. The walk pirouettes ride beautifully, there's something about this horse and that movement, he really has good instincts with them and I can really fuck that movement right up and he just does it. Good boy, earning your keep.

The haunches-in is... well, it exists. He slows down a bit in it and shuffles to get the right amount of angle, but it's fine. The shoulder-in to ten meter circle rides quite well so I'm not too fussed about a weak haunches-in. I feel like Second level is the level where you're just kind of low key bad at everything.

Simple changes feel great, going away from the judge is preferable, although she'll be able to see him get wide behind. Rico didn't have clean simple changes until like... Fourth level. TC's are clean, they just sometimes feel like I'm riding a bag of rocks down a hill.

Sunrise driving to the barn before teaching and working and
teaching some more

Now, the place where we would have gotten eliminated in the 2-3 was OBVIOUSLY the medium canter on the left lead. He exploded a few times in our test riding, which is fine, it's just him. But he saw a feather when we just started the medium canter and then he leapt sideways, landed with the court in between his left and right pairs of legs, then leapt again and we were outside the court.

Ugh. Horse. Seriously. Please keep your fingers crossed for a low-wind day, not that he's afraid of wind, it's that he likes to play with things floating around in the wind.

So we'll see how THAT goes. It's not a big deal to get eliminated, really, I just want to get in the show ring. Ideally we'll like, end our test inside the court with a halt and a salute rather than by jumping out of the ring, but unfortunately this is just who TC is at times. He really has no respect for that tiny fence around the arena (non-horsey SO thought I was weird to be nervous that he'd jump out of the arena "is that really a concern?" I forgot to explain that I'm not worried about him jumping out of the actual arena, just the court).

Remember this bullshit?

But other than that, we're feeling as ready as we can be given that 1) I've been working VERY hard this fall and have been a whiny bitch about it for weeks to the point where it's a miracle if my friends or family don't murder me before the show, 2) I haven't been able to ride TC nearly as long or as much as I would like coming into our first show of the year, and 3) TC is clearly a show jumper who missed his calling and I'm making a bad decision trying to contain his enthusiasm in a tiny sandbox.

I want to test ride a bit more and we have our last lesson with Tracey this weekend (unless it's another shit show lesson and then I'll take a day off work to get one before the show). Then it's just a weekend off of riding for me to start the L program and the following weekend is the show! I am genuinely excited for it, I want to braid him (using Peony's Spot On Braiding Wax, of course!), get all dressed up, brush that damn tail out, and hear how pretty his color is from strangers. It will be fun and I'm managing my expectations score-wise to keep it fun even if we don't get the scores I've been hoping for.

Test Riding at Second Level

Thursday morning I saw that the covered arena had been cleared of jumps/cavallettis and had also been watered and dragged! So that meant one thing: test riding.

We tentatively have a schooling show in early October where I'd ideally like to ride 2-1 and 2-2 to see how they go. We've never ridden 2-2, and my attempts at 2-1 happened last year when he was just baaaarely able to do the test. It was like trying to ride a Fourth level test now except that I couldn't even stuff him through those because he doesn't have half the movements at that level yet.

Random soloshot pictures because I don't have anything current

Anyway, I figured that I should test ride it before I decide to show. So between yesterday and today, we rode all of the Second level tests. Here's a quick rundown of how each went:

Second 1: totally clean except that at the end of the test he exploded for no reason. Cool.
Second 2: totally clean except he thought that he'd do a lead change in the first counter canter, oops.
Second 3: again totally clean except in the first counter canter pattern he broke.

Overall I was super pleased with how easy the tests felt! We definitely have some homework, which I thought would be more interesting to talk about than to run through each test. Here are some of the things I want to really fix up before we have to do this in a show:

The best pony

Sitting the Medium Trot

This horse has a hell of a trot in general, and once you put it over the ground it becomes even more impossible to sit. What I noticed is that while I sit the medium trot just fine even on the long diagonal, I get tired enough where I tend to shut the trot down as we slow down and then it's hard to put him back up in the lateral work.

So I think I need to sit the mediums a lot more (this is news to no one) and focus on how I'm handling things afterward. The medium trot can be used to develop a much better, more cadenced trot, and I should be utilizing it a bit better so that we can come into our lateral work stronger.

I also realized that they set up 2-1 and 2-2 so that you don't have to do that much trot work all at once, but that 2-3 has all your trot work front loaded. I never considered it until I was facing my second medium trot in 2-3 and was like you know, I'm fucking tired.


Counter Canter

Obviously all of our mistakes came in counter canter, so we need to work on that the most. There area  few things going on. TC knows his counter canter, but hasn't been asked to do it in as small of a space.

TC is still learning to stay really up and in front of my leg in the collected canter, so add the counter canter to that and it's really tough. I feel like his canter shuts down a bit in the counter canter still.

The plan is to continue to school the smaller patterns in the dressage court (or in a manufactured one, I think I am going to measure out the big arena) and then also to ride larger counter canter patterns in the big arena focusing on the quality of the canter. Hopefully the two will collide and I'll be able to maintain the quality of the canter on the smaller figures.

This was from before Tanya had me bring him up

Simple Changes

The simple changes are foot perfect when I'm practicing them, but like everything, they get worse in a test environment. This is because I'll go to put him in the very collected canter and he'll get a bit slow, or he'll prop a bit, or he'll lose depth of his inside hind, and when I'm just in practice, I will push him out of it and try again. In a test I just walk from there. The transitions are clean, but that's not what an 8 simple change feels like!

The upwards are fine, but he needs confidence, he only feels confident in the upwards if I kiss at the same time as asking, so I'm going to be doing a lot more of those.


Turns on the Haunches

These are pretty damn good but I'm struggling a little bit to ride them as turns on the haunches vs walk pirouettes. Meaning I have not a lot of control over the size of them. I think my goal over the next few weeks is going to be to just put a damn good walk pirouette on him and forget about it.

Yep too downhill here

Overall I'm super pleased with how the tests rode! I don't think that it's so far out of our wheelhouse to think that we'd be okay at this schooling show. I think we're good to go for 2-1 and 2-2 in a couple of weeks and then we miiiight go to a rated show at the end of October and do 1-3 and 2-1. I don't think I want to risk too much counter canter in the rated ring just yet.

Learning to Sit Down

Last night I had my first lesson in over a month! I have been trying to take two a month since I started riding with my new trainer, but I clearly failed in August. As I wrote about last week though, the Soloshot has been allowing me to be my own trainer, so it hasn't been so bad and after last night, I think that Tanya and I are totally on the same track with what we want TC to be doing.

Still, I love lessons, so Monday afternoon I hitched up and took TC over to M's barn (a 5 minute drive away). I've been wanting a lesson at home, just because TC is so different there, but hauling out is always a good idea for him. TC seemed to miss hauling out, since he nickered at the trailer as he walked in, pretty good for the horse who used to have absolute meltdowns off the property.

What a pony

TC was much more chill at M's barn in comparison to the first time he was there. Tanya asked how things had been going and I couldn't help but to say something like "WELL I MEAN WE HAVE BEEN WINNING EVERYTHING" and she asked whether all my scores were in the 70s. Oh... no they weren't, only two of them were. This is the year of 68-69%s, boo. But she said she was impressed with my ability to keep TC in the court when he tried to leave, so that was nice to hear. Not like I've had practice with him trying to nope out of the court before...

Moving forward, I told her that I was kind of thinking about either Second level or a First level freestyle. Part of me wants a few more 1-3 tests under our belts this fall (preferably to snag a few more 70%s) and next spring while we also show 2-1. The other part of me is pretty sick of 1-3 even though we've only ridden it twice (successfully) in the show ring. We rode T3 a lot more.

But the main goal was to be able to go 2-1 and 2-2 at the schooling show in October and not look totally out of place. I know that we're not ready (inb4 someone says that scoring in the 70s = ready for the next level, he gets 8s on things that aren't at Second, turns out the levels all have different movements lol), but we can still put in a respectable test for a schooling show.

The soloshot makes my horse seem so downhill sometimes,
excited to get a new tripod at some point...

Tanya was on board with that, though seemed to have a preference for us moving up vs doing a freestyle. We started working in trot, just warming up. She had nothing but good things to say about us warming up- TC looks great, steady and out to the bridle, active behind, straight. Cool! I also didn't get nailed for any mechanics, but that's because I wasn't sore anymore. All these pictures are from my ride on Sunday night when I was still pretty sore. 

Once in canter, she had a lot more to say. TC is now ready for a true collected canter and I am NOT here for that apparently. I ride him too low in front and I need to get his neck up and out and then put his butt down. She told me to bring him up... more... even more... no he's not off the bit, bring him UP MORE. Okay just bring him OFF the bit then. Yes that's good. No don't put his neck down. That's good. No he's not off the bit.

I rode him down to the mirror and saw the canter I had and was like HOLY SHIT. This is a horse who had a lateral canter at 3 years old. Yes he does need to be ridden up and out like that. It gets his front end out of the way of his hind legs so they can come under further.

Like up here, which feels off the bit but instead of putting his
neck down to get him rounder, I need to bring him up in
the shoulder

The left lead needed to be a bit straighter, so we schooled that down the long side and on the circle with a bit of renvers. The renvers really helped get him straight and I could feel a huge difference in the quality of canter. It was much more on round wheels and it was almost like TC took a deep breath like oh phew she's letting me go straight. Sorry pony!

Tanya had me do some canter to walk transitions and walk to canter transitions on the circle. The upwards were good, TC still needs confidence in them just because he does tend to stutter a little bit. Like oh you... oh the canter, you want that gait? okay... wait, yes, cantering? And that just takes time for the horses to get confident. The downwards though, they were on point. Turns out when the horse is not diving onto his forehand, the canter is able to collect to the speed of the walk, and that makes for some good downward transitions.

We played with a pseudo-school canter, bringing TC nearly on the spot and then addressing the issues that this caused. Like many horses, TC wants to get a bit stacked up and prop with his hind legs rather than sit. Tanya wanted me to send him out of it to quicken him and get his inside hind leg further under, then ask again. She also wanted me to stay a little back in my upper body since I climbed forward when he would prop. That alone made a huge difference. And we had some really nice moments where TC was essentially on the spot but still super soft through his topline. Tanya said that he was pretty naturally talented at the collection at the canter (!!!). I hope this means the pirouettes will be easier to put on him than on Rico!

I can see now how much this horse is going to need to come up
and out at the canter but it's hard to ride because it feels so bad

Back in trot, we did a really fun exercise. Tanya wants TC's lateral work in trot to be a bit more connected through his whole body. He tends to get a little bit tight and loses cadence, especially in the haunches-in. So we stayed on the circle and did shoulder-in to haunches-in to renvers, focusing on making sure that his trot stayed big and loose and he didn't get too locked in his neck. It's so funny, when Rico would lock up, it was really unpleasantly heavy and I'd want to fix it right away to avoid that feeling. TC locks up and he just feels slightly less good, so I haven't been quick to correct it. I need higher standards!

The circle exercise felt AMAZING. I could really feel him step into both reins and his trot got much harder to sit. My abs were killing me, especially because in my power lifting class on Friday, I had done our cash out of 100 sit ups without stopping since I had to get going. I was still a bit sore (just in my core) on Monday... so more sit ups for me. But still, we're definitely doing this exercise again. I've never felt his haunches-in so cadenced.

I was so so sore during this ride that I was struggling with the
posting trot mechanic, ugh

To end, we did some walk pirouettes. Tanya was super happy with the mechanic, but wants him quicker. TC is a very deliberate horse. If you ask him for something, he wants to do it right so sometimes he slows down and really thinks about it. This leads to him being a quick learner, but it also leads to him losing impulsion in some movements, such as the lateral work. He really wants to slow down and scootch through it. But man this horse was easy to put walk pirouettes on, clicker training for the win!

To quicken the walk pirouettes, Tanya had me put him on an endless walk pirouette again and push him a step forward if he slowed down. She also wants him generally more buzzy in the walk work. That makes me feel slightly unsafe, but this is Second level and I'm going to feel unsafe. That's how much he needs to be ON.

I'm glad we got some stuff to work on in them, I kind of just take for granted that they're always good for the level we're at. But honestly, why not have walk pirouettes worthy of PSG when we debut at Second? So we'll be doing a lot more of them from now on.

That tail is just ridiculous

In the end I wanted some answers about lead changes. I've put changes on my fair share of horses, but I want to get better at it and that means learning from someone who has put them on WAY MORE horses. I told Tanya that we'd been playing with them maybe once a quarter for a couple days at a time. He very clearly knows the difference between counter canter and lead change, he does not anticipate the change (have I mentioned how much I love this horse lately?), he does it on the aid when I ask. He is, however, not reliably clean at this time. So I haven't been doing them very much.

I asked what her prerequisites were. They were the same as mine, which is great! But she said that she wanted me to teach him to change out of the more collected canter. And that was news to me. I've always taught horses out of a... not a less collected canter step, but something that has more power over the ground. We talked about that and I revealed that the vast majority of horses I'd worked with were much smaller movers than TC. And that was it, TC's canter is huge, he needs to learn out of a much much more collected canter. And for that, he needs to be very comfortable in his almost-school canter.

He's the coolest

Tanya also wanted me to work more on the counter canter. She said that she typically doesn't want the counter canter "perfect" before introducing the changes, since that can make life difficult. But TC has already been introduced to the changes, and that means I can get that counter canter pretty perfect now.  So it's a fall/winter of counter canter, collecting the canter, simple changes, and me getting used to riding him up and out at the canter.

She didn't give me a timeline, but depending on how winter goes, I'd like to have them on in the early spring. I want to give him about six to eight months of doing them well at home before I ask in the show ring, and we're on a very tentative track to debut at Third at the end of next year. I dunno, there's so much that could go wrong before then.

He's such a grown up these days

Overall, as always, it was an AMAZING lesson. Tanya remarked how far TC and I had come this summer. I only started riding with her in May. We've gone from scoring a 61% last year at 1-1 to a 73% at 1-2 (and a ton of scores 68%+). His gaits are totally different and every single lesson I walk away wondering how I managed to own such an amazing animal. More on that later with this new blog hop going around!

I told her thank you for believing in us. It's so refreshing to have a trainer who really believes in us, especially him. He's such a cool horse!

Step Through

Saturday I woke up early and stuck TC in the trailer to take him back over to my trainer's barn for another lesson. This time though, Peony lent me her Pixio!! I seriously have the most amazing friends.

The drive over there was a titch rough with it being Drive Like an Asshole Day and all, but once as we got there, TC hopped right out of the trailer and was totally fine. Not impressed. One day he'll be like that even at brand new places!

Get it pony! Do more planks, Megan!

I tacked him up except for the bridle and then took him and the Pixio down to the barn. I left TC in the cross ties and then went and put everything up. Peony and Andy had stopped in (bringing me in n out!) the night before and helped me set it up in my apartment (and then Peony demonstrated some really amazing dressage moves on foot) so that I could figure out how to do it. It wasn't hard to set up, the only thing that was tricky was actually working the camera because I kept looking for a button that wasn't there. Yes I remember going over this the night before.

Back in the barn, I grabbed TC and took him out to the ring, turned on the camera, looked at it skeptically for a while, and then got on to walk him (totally forgetting about my equisense, seems like one equine-related technology is enough for me). He was just the tiniest bit balled up, but when I started trotting, he settled right in.

The first thing Tanya said about him was that he seemed really quiet! While I warmed up, she helped me with my posting mechanic. I tend to tuck my butt a little bit on the top of the rise, which is not necessary, so I stopped doing that and it made his trot feel much better! She also wanted me landing a little bit further back in the saddle. I've always been the sort to arch my back so it's interesting that I'm going in the opposite direction. Sticking with the biomechanics part of the lesson, she also wanted me to get my elbows down and my hands up a little bit. I don't normally ride like a monkey but I was really sore soooo yeah.

So he's coughing a little bit here so obviously the answer to that
is to do WILD AND CRAZY THINGS WITH YOUR  HANDS
but you can see my posting mechanic change a bit 

Immediately in the canter we had the issue I've been having - TC gets behind my leg and then bucks. Finally! I was so glad to have this happen in front of her! We talked about the whole spectrum of the canter. I've been feeling him get behind my leg, swinging to let's say the right of the pendulum, and then I've been only swinging him back to neutral, which isn't far enough, we have to go all the way to the left. I need to basically gallop him forward until he's super committed to being at neutral or above. She said to fix this now before it becomes a problem. And I was like dude it's a problem now!

Boing boing boing , you can see he does it when he's asked to
get his hind legs under him and he's like nah how about this other
shit instead? Btw he does it both ways and is not in pain, his rider
could be better though, or much worse. 

That's more where he needs to be for warm up! 

But once as TC is in front of the leg, he stays there pretty well, so that's great! We did some lengthenings down the long sides and then shortenings on the short side to really test this out and he only broke once I think. I still need to be committed to bringing him shorter, but I think I'm kind of afraid to do it because I might lose the reach from his inside hind leg. Gah I wish I had mirrors! I've been historically bad at really feeling the hind legs and yet I continue to buy horses who like to leave their hind legs behind them... Excellent life choices!

Go pony! Still working on getting him pushing from behind vs
just pulling along with the front end, so I have to keep him a
bit more compressed in these for now, one day he'll have a big
scary extension though!

We took a walk break after that, but at the end of it, she wanted to check on our walk pirouettes. I've been working on them on and off for a while and have always thought that TC's mechanic was excellent but that he wanted to just get a bit slow. The one to the left was excellent, but the one to the right slowed down. Not getting sticky or stepping out or anything other than just making it look like we were doing it in slow motion. 

Tanya had me go do a "working walk pirouette" which I have always called an "endless walk pirouette" where you're just in the middle of the arena going around and around and around. She had me put him forward 1-2 steps out of it when he'd slow down, then immediately get back in it. Hey that sounds familiar... I can't find the post about it, but I for sure took a lesson on Rico where I did this exact exercise in a canter pirouette.

I love him! The left one is easy, just need a bit more throughness
and a bit more bend for the show ring I think

To the right, what we ended with, obviously it needs a lot of
work but it was so much better than before!

The lesson continues, but that will be for tomorrow's post given how long it's taking me to make all these gifs! It's amazing to have the video though. I really need to start scheming and figure out how I can get me one of these cameras... 

Just a Diamond Now, No Rough

A week ago I went and audited a new-ish to me trainer who comes into the area on some Monday evenings. She doesn't come to my barn, so I figured it'd be a few weeks or months before I'd be able to haul to her. After being really excited about her lessons, I was chatting with her and some of the other riders afterward and they mentioned that they needed one more person for the next week to make the clinic happen. I said "well, I'll do it if you can come to me!" and fast forward a week, we had our first lesson together!

So much has changed since my last lesson in October on him (with a different trainer). TC has gone from a solid Training level horse to one that I hope is at least capable of going First in like... less than a week (just a schooling show).

His connection has improved loads, we spent the whole winter working on impulsion, and he's beginning to carry more weight behind. I've also radically changed my way of thinking (and sitting) since the Mary Workshop and despite not having a lot of help with second toolkit stuff for TC, I've had a lot of help on the first toolkit stuff on various horses at Kate's barn and on TC when Kate came into town a few weeks ago and this last weekend.

Um... who is this horse?

So going into this lesson I was really excited (also excited that Peony offered to come watch and video for me!). Tanya is someone I've ridden with before, mostly on other horses, and every time I audit her, I get something major to take back to TC. So having her help with TC (especially now that he's the most perfect animal) was really exciting!

Tanya started out by asking me to tell her about TC and I threw random soundbites at her. Last year at Training, this year hopefully First, my position is real questionable, want to do a schooling show this coming weekend, horse very good, kinda lazy in the heat today. I picked up the trot and she watched for a bit before starting to teach me.

And what commenced was the best lesson I've had in YEARS. I'll try to make it somewhat readable.

Riding a bit of shoulder-in

We started in posting trot and Tanya got a good look at our baseline. She said some really nice things- TC is very steady in the bridle, he reaches well into it, he's very loose through his body and he keeps his hind legs under him well. Yay! That's all I've been working on!

Pretty early on she had me go into shoulder-in. The shoulder-in was good but Tanya wanted me to bring his shoulder around a bit more, so she had me do shoulder-in to a 12 meter circle thinking about touching him under with the whip and then shoulder-in again, which really helped. She also had me take him back over his hocks a bit more in it, to think a bit like rein back, half halt on both reins.  She had me shorten my reins a bit and take him a little more up and out with his nose as well, which would end up being a theme.

From there, we went into right lead canter. The first thing she noted was that I am not using my flexion pattern/slingshot as well as I could, to pull TC's forehand up a bit more. She wanted me to half halt a bit more to put TC back onto my seat and onto his hocks. I did and she said no, more. And I did again and she said "no, like almost halt him" and so I really did and he sat down and then she had me do quite a few of those bigger half halts. I was to keep my reins shorter, my outside rein better connected so he was straighter (almost thinking counter position), his poll more up, and to keep him quick behind.

Warming up

At first, I was skeptical. I told her, I've never been told to put him up, I've been told to get him down, down down, long and down, down and low and long. She said YES, you've done that, and you've done it great and he's down and round and in a really lovely Training sort of way. But, if I want to show First level, he can't be like that. He has to be up and out. And I was on board with that, especially after feeling what it did to TC.

The canter completely and utterly transformed. Tanya found a bit of canter that she liked and said that "this is a more grown up canter" and after that, TC needed a walk break.

From there, we went into trot and did some trot-walk-trot transitions from sitting trot. Immediately Tanya noticed that I was driving with my seat too much and explained to me that the energy needed to come from my leg and that the seat organizes the energy, it doesn't create it. I tickled TC a bit to get him more powerful under me and then thought about adding more spring to his gaits and we found a much better trot that I could not sit. About two minutes in I said "I am so tired" and Tanya said "it's been two minutes" and ignored my pleas.

Learning to sit down

We continued working on the transitions and she wanted him to be more crisp about them. I kind of tried to explain that it wasn't him, it was me. I kept having to breathe when we got to walk and couldn't catch my breath enough to get back to trot. That big fancy trot is WAY HARD TO SIT. She said that I needed to get fitter. On it, okay.

From transitions, we went into leg yields and the first one didn't go well. Tanya wanted me to make sure that TC really knew what I was asking for by opening the door a bit more. She had me bug him a bit about it and shuffle him over and then after that he was like OH YAH LEG YIELDS I GOT IT and zipped sideways every time I asked. Man this horse is cool.

After that, we cantered to the left. The left lead has plagued me for a while. If you remember, it was the lead I was on where Kate had to tell me a thousand times not to pull on the left rein and then I asked her if he was blatantly off the bit that way.

Work that booty, TC

I knew that Tanya would want a more uphill canter, so I immediately got him to a better place uphill. She demanded more, so I half halted. She said no, head up. So I looked up. And she was like "no... his head, but also yours could come up too." I put his head up and she said more, to almost feel like he was off the bit. And I, of course, had a big mouth and complained "he feels off the bit here though," and she didn't care what I had to think. Put him more up and out. So I did and HOT DAMN did he canter. With his neck up and out he has a lot more room under him for his hind legs and he's very happy to put them there. The horse doesn't have a no in him. I had a stupid big grin on my face and I think he did too.

He felt incredible in that place. He felt like I could do anything I wanted with him. Lead changes? Sure! Counter canter? Sure! Half pass? Sure! Canter-walk? Of course, and we did that. Tanya said that he was just there for it so we may as well. Sometimes you just see they have a movement in them and you should just do it.

We walked a bit and then she said to put him together and do a turn on the haunches, so we did and she said that it was quite good. I felt like I didn't have enough set up to do it properly, and she did admit later that he had one step that stepped out (knew it) but that it was really good. Phew! I haven't had any mirrors to practice those!

Warm up

We went back into trot and really addressed the trot. She wanted him up, out, under, and more suspended. I wanted him to be a PRE or something. Or a giant taco. It's hilarious to watch the video because I'm just barely hanging in there as she's demanding more and telling me how good it is. Then there's me having these existential moments like what is dressage anyway, why am I doing this?

She said that he had a fancy shoulder and that I needed to develop this trot. She loved his instincts in the development. I could put my leg on and ask for more trot and his first move was to snap his hind legs up and under, putting himself more into my hand. And that's when I dropped the mic reins and left the arena because I'd just won dressage. No but I can't explain this feeling I got on him in that trot. Like who the FUCK is this horse? When did he replace my dorky baby horse with the lateral canter?

But actually what horse is this

She had me set up and ride a medium trot, in response to which I asked "do I have to sit it?" and she said "uh, yeah" and so I did but I felt like I wasn't going to have abs after it. The first one was a bit rough for me so I didn't really go for it. The second one was absolutely amazing. He came up and flung his front legs out to the best of his current abilities and covered ground like he never has before.

We let him be done after that and Tanya had great things to say about him, which was a relief. She said that he had three good gaits and said that this work seemed easy for him. She said that I'd done an amazing job getting him to this point, but that it was time to make the move toward more uphill balance and collection. She said that his type could be very low tone and heavy, but that she was pleasantly surprised at how much he pumped himself up.

She said that if I could get this to be our norm, that we would score very well at First level. And I said yay, and she said no, VERY WELL at First level. I asked about Second this fall, like in October and she said yes that we'd for sure be ready if we got him on this program.

The fancy shoulder

I'm absolutely amazed and so happy with this horse. He has grown into such a super star. Watching the videos (going to work on getting a compilation video soon) I just... like... who do I think I am owning a horse like this? I think all the rough is off of this one, he's for sure a diamond now.

In the Details

In addition to working hard on my own position (need. lesson. must. move. first.) and the key movements of First level, TC and I are adding another layer of detail to our work. 

As I climb the levels once again, my main goal is to take it a little slower and do it a bit more right. It's really hard to balance chasing medals and taking your time to create a horse with minimal training holes. I mean, there is obviously such a thing as going way too fast (where it is detrimental to the horse/every ride feels like a huge fight) and going way too slow (like with TC, too slow for me is taking more than a year per level unless something outside of training delays us).

But with Rico, I was very much on a time limit with his age and soundness, so we probably went a bit faster than we should have. I mean, he literally went from PSG to GP in a year. But I also worked my ass off, had a trainer who very much was dedicated to the basics without shortcuts and hey, he also never scored in the 50s in that time (we have exactly two scores at 59 on our record, one was when I was trying to ride through a back injury at First level and the other was at Third level when it was windy and half the arena letters fell over and he was very skeptical about that).

Me as a kid stupidly trying to ride through a back injury, young
Rico is like "why is this my life, why am I so off the bit?"

TC is not on a time limit necessarily. If he starts taking more than a year per level, I will reevaluate why that's happening. Is it because of me? I sometimes can't ride enough and all last year didn't take many lessons so that slows us down. Is it because of outside circumstances? Moving means that we'll be missing our opportunity to show for a while because of both finances and having to get settled in a new place. Is it TC? Hopefully TC is the world's most sound horse from now on but it could be that another injury sets us back again. Or it could be that physically the work becomes too much for him and he needs to find a new owner who will be happy at the lower levels. But he is my GP prospect so hopefully that's never the case. 

So when I think about the levels with him, I think about not just doing enough to get through a test to grab a score (which, tbh, is how Rico was trained for a long time), but thinking about how the work we are doing now is going to affect the rest of his training. Good turns on the haunches and good shoulder-in at Second level mean good full canter pirouettes at Grand Prix. Taking my time to put the changes on correctly means that I won't spend a full year or more making them clean. It means that he won't struggle with the tempis even further on. Taking my time to really develop the half pass correctly (so using my inside leg and sitting to the inside from the start, even though I hate those things) means that later on at the GP level, we won't struggle with the steepness of the zig zag causing us to lose cadence.

I like Nicole's quote for this: slow is smooth and smooth is fast. I may be slogging through the lower levels right now at a pace slower than I could, but theoretically the movements will come on faster and more correct later on.

Ask me how I know, it took a long time to fix our half pass

But there's lots of little things too, that show up in every test. Halts, rein backs, canter to trot transitions. Every single test in the upper levels has these little movements that the horse has been doing for years. So why did I keep getting 6s and 7s on these movements on Rico, who theoretically had been trained to do them so long before? 

So with that in mind, TC and I are adding another layer of detail to our rides by really focusing on the movements that I know will haunt us forever. I figure I can't do enough of these movements early-ish in his training.

Trot-halt-trot

Starting at First level, these transitions are no longer allowed to be through the walk. So that means no walk steps at all in or out. For a long time, TC could not halt to trot. I don't know if it was me (probably) or him (also probable), but he always wiggled out of the transition and then picked up an equally wiggly trot. The trot to halt was always quite weak, and honestly remains that way, but we're getting good ones sprinkled in.

For the most part, fixing my position has been the key to getting that transition down. I realized a bit ago that I let the structure of my position go when I did a downward transition from the trot, so fixing that and keeping my backline engaged meant that I could really keep riding into the downward. For him, it's all about strength. He just needs more of it. But he's also getting a fair amount of praise when he gets it, or even gets close, so that's helping a lot. 

Canter-trot transitions

The canter to trot transition exists in tests for a very long time. I think almost all (if not all, I'm not going through all the tests right now though) of the tests require at least one canter to trot transition. There's no reason why, by First level, this can't be at least a 7, if not an 8, and remain that way for a long time. This was a stupid place I lost points with Rico because he'd always stutter into the trot and think about walking. It wasn't until I was prepping for PSG with Tracey that she pointed out that it was ABSOLUTELY ridiculous to lose points on that transition (and like, it was also evidence that he wasn't really balanced/in front of my leg/collected/through).

TC isn't terrible at it, but there is a few moments of me having to pick him back up afterward. And I'd love to be able to canter right away after it, I feel like I'm gambling in the simple changes through the trot sometimes. So we're working hard on those.

Rico always halted a little out behind, but at least he's square

Trot-halt-rein back (eventually trot out of rein back)

Rico struggled so much with this at first. There would be times where I'd ask him to rein back and he'd go super wide behind and inch himself back. There were also times where I'd ask him to rein back and he'd just rear. Makes sense looking back, I wouldn't release pressure when he took steps back (because they weren't good enough), but I sure as hell released pressure when he reared. We did get this down real well by the time we were at Fourth, but why lose points at Second?

TC is also kind of the worst at reining back. His go to maneuver in general is to stick his head straight up in the air. See something scary? Head in the air. Asked to do something new? Head in the air. So when I asked him to rein back, head in the air. We have done a TON of work in hand with this, and now he's kind of putting it together undersaddle too. Rein back != head in the air. Please. He's still taking weeny steps back and likes to start reining back the second he's halted, so we have a long way to go, but it's coming along.

Walk pirouettes

I guess these aren't exactly the basics, but they're almost always double coefficients moving up the levels and they're present for a long time. I went through a bout at Third level where Rico and I just didn't score very well. I nailed it down to bad walk pirouettes. I'd literally have no major mistakes, just a misstep in one walk pirouette and my score would plummet. Gah.

So I've been working on them quite a bit with TC. The reason why we're starting this like... a year or more before we'll need them is because of how slow his fucking walk is. It's taken me quite a long time to get him marching in the first place. For the longest time he had two walks: a very slow funeral march and a jigging mess. We can get the more forward march now, which is great. But he also needs a more active walk that covers less ground for the pirouettes. If you get him too amped, he just trots when you ask for it. So it's taking a long time to even get a walk that is capable of doing walk pirouettes. The good news is, we have schooled them, and when the walk is good, they are perfect. So it's more working on his walk than working on the actual mechanic of it. 

TC, I've seen your future and it involves a lot of cantering very
slow and going in very tiny circles

Hopefully all this work on these little details ends up giving us a bit of a leg up arithmetic-wise later on. For now, it's just about filling in holes when they're really shallow and only causing us to trip over, vs when they are very deep and we fall way down into one. 

Where Things Are At

TC has been loving life in his new big paddock. And I've been loving TC in his new big paddock, which has been really refreshing.

I moved him a few days after he turned my foot into a pancake, mostly because he was going completely nuts without being able to be ridden. I hit my last straw when he realized that I had zero leverage over him and he got loose galloping around in the round pen two days in a row. I was super done with him after that, tossed him in the paddock, and ignored him for nearly a week (well, I mean I fed him and gave him pets, but no riding/longeing/etc to let my foot heal).

Then last Wednesday I took him out to longe because I had mentioned kinda wanting to sell him to a friend who had asked for a video. And after almost a week off, he just... went to work. No bolting, no launching, no rearing, no bad behavior at all. He was super chill about it all. I even hopped on him in my Dublin boots (it's still too painful to use my new boots, boo) and he was great. No problems. I let him start the canter work that day, even though I had wanted to wait another month, both legs have been holding up okay with more work, leading me to believe that maybe that left front one wasn't as serious as it appeared. I dunno, I was in a no-fucks-given mood so just put him back to work (slowly, but not restricting him to just trot).

Ground pole champions

The good behavior continued the next day. I rode Thursday night in the dark in the dressage court and ran him through Training 2 (which was super easy for him, but it was the only test I could remember). He was fine, nervous, but fine. Friday morning I rode him and he was great again, we rode in the jumping arena and were ground pole champions of the world. Then Saturday, he was great. And Sunday too. What is this madness?

It's not to say that he hasn't had his little quirks- on Sunday he had a bolt when he turned away from a pile of stuff near the trail course, about 50% of the time the first walk to trot transition is balky, and he really thought that a small dog was going to eat him and didn't want to walk by it. He is a young horse... but the rides have been really good and really productive! I don't mind spooking or being dumb, I just mind never getting to do the fun stuff because he's so nuts (and when he scares me, I hate that).

As for the rides, I'm mostly dumping on movements right now. He feels great in the connection, his back feels like it's suctioned to the panels of my saddle, and he's really well balanced laterally and longitudinally, aside from me struggling to track left so I make him tilt his head a bit that way when I'm not paying attention. The quality of the gaits feels great, I actually love his canter now. I hated it for so long, I didn't think he had any potential in it. But it's so easy to collect (well, to get a Second level amount of collection at least, he's not that fancy lol), I actually over collect it sometimes and he gets frustrated with me because he can't hold it and breaks. Sorry horse! The trot isn't as big as it used to be, mostly because he's a lot more relaxed now and he's a lot less fit. I think the trot will be back to magical levels when he's stronger. No complaints with what it's like now, it's got a ton of scope, just not as much reach as before.

That tiny dog was going to kill him

The leg yield is super solid at the trot, though not steep enough for 1-3 just yet I don't think. It'd be a tough movement if it is possible. When I push him more sideways, he gets retracted in the neck and isn't the most rideable in it when it gets steep. Generally he loses rideability in the lateral work, so that's a huge hump that we have to crawl over.

The shoulder-in is great. I'm working to ride it a little less bent tracking left to address the head tilting and my inability to get him to really stay connected properly on the right side. To the right, he feels wonderful. The next steps here will be to play with transitions within the shoulder-in I think, which is super fun.

I'm installing haunches-in currently. The angle is great at the walk, but he gets stilted and either off the bit or retracted in the neck, depending on how much I get on his case about it. The trot, well, it exists, but it's not very good. I'm mostly using shoulder-in to renvers to put it on so that he connects it to the shoulder-in a bit, that's been super helpful. Once as we have haunches-in, I'm sure we'll have half pass because the mechanic is similar enough.

The walk pirouettes are coming along! I want him snappier behind and I want them smaller, but those will come with collection at the walk, which I absolutely will not TOUCH for at least nine months. He's got a really nice walk and I'm trying to take my time to develop it. Adding collection too soon in the walk is the first step toward ruining that walk- ask me how I know (I totally ruined Rico's walk for a few years). So right now they're big and slow, but the mechanic is correct so I'm happy about that.

I totes rode him bareback from his paddock to the cross ties

The canter work, as I said, feels great. I'm mostly addressing straightness riding toward the mirrors. To the right, he wants to swing his haunches out and ride almost like a shoulder-in. To the left he wants to bring his haunches in and his shoulders-out. So we're basically riding the opposite- haunches in to the right and shoulder-in to the left.

I got bored one day and asked for a walk to canter, then worked on them when he totally picked it up no problem. They EXIST, which is really good news- the canter to walk has always existed when he has enough muscle on him, but the walk canters have been really questionable. Now the transition itself is reliable, but the throughness is probably 50/50 depending on how I set him up. I'm channeling Jeremy (screw up with confidence) when I accidentally ask wrong. Yeah it's helpful when I ask exactly at the right moment, but he should figure it out if I ask wrong too. Gotta build me an amateur horse if I'm going to keep him.

The other super fun thing is that I rode some flying changes this weekend! He's not ready at all to work on them- I like to have a better simple change and have counter canter when I teach them, but the idea with playing with them now is to get him understanding that this is a thing he will be asked to do in the future. I rode each of them twice over the course of two rides. His left to right one is one stride late behind but VERY on the aids. Like he never anticipated and it was exactly when I asked. I'm fairly decent at fixing late behind changes, so it doesn't bother me that he's late at this stage in his training. He'll figure it out when we really need them, which will probably be this fall or winter. The other one, the right to left, is a bit more questionable on the aid, but it's more likely to be clean than the other one.

I might have a death wish?

It was such a fun week with him, and I feel like I owe my friends and family a lot of presents because everyone was with me for a week when he was being terrible. I'm not really sure what I want to do in the long run with him. On the one hand, when he's good, he's the most fun I've ever had on a horse. He learns SO FAST and LOVES dressage. You can just tell this horse wants so desperately to work and do dressage, I would have killed for this work ethic when I was riding Rico.

He also is so fun because he is just built for this work. Don't jump to conclusions about that- it doesn't mean that this is easy on him or that he doesn't have weaknesses. He curls, retracts in his neck, is weirdly slow off the leg and hot at the same time, he carries tension in his lower back, he's super short backed so the lateral work is really hard for him, and he struggles to get his hind legs under him as much as they need to be. But with my ability to manage those weaknesses pretty easily (since Rico had similar ones) and my focus on getting his basics picture perfect before doing much with him, he's just figuring all this out super easily.

Then obviously on the other hand, he is a bit too much horse for me. I know it sounds weird to some people. But just because I'm an accomplished dressage rider, doesn't mean that I can handle crazy young horse stuff. I'm not technically an amateur, but I live an amateur lifestyle, which means riding alone in the dark (not anymore!) and being on a major budget for things like lessons/support. I think if I had the money to have him in full training and hand him off on the weeks he was being bad, it'd be a no brainer to keep him for a long time. Or if I had more time to ride in the mid morning, it'd be much easier. But he's a lot of horse, and he's put me through a lot. So we'll see. For right now, things are going well and I'm happy with him. Not sure what today's ride will entail. I might be redacting this whole thing.

Thinking that he might have to destroy the other
foot too, just for symmetry

Ponies and Beer and Tacos

On Monday, it turned out that L was going to be just a little bit up the road from Rico and I, so we made arrangements for her to come by the ranch! It actually worked out well that I've been riding Rico more, since now he's at least fit enough for a fun shortish ride vs a quick pony ride.

One of them had more fun than the other

When she got there, we went right up to get Rico, no time to waste!

I had been nice and told her to bring her saddle. Having ridden Ramone both in my saddle and hers, I desperately preferred mine- not because hers is uncomfortable, but my knees feel like they were up by my ears- I could imagine it'd go the other way. Nothing like riding a horse trained in a completely different discipline AND having to fight my saddle's blocks at the same time.

Luckily her magic saddle that fits all horses fit Rico, and after throwing white polos on (for optimal dressage fanciness), and the pelham on my snaffle bridle, she hopped on.

Rico can be ridden in any bit, but he goes really well in the pelham and always has. I don't have the wheymouth he likes, and as I said on Tuesday, he actually is going well in the one he doesn't like but he gets behind the leg easier and I knew he'd be lazy for L no matter what. He goes well in the snaffle too, but you really have to get on his case about lightness/roundness and I just felt like this ride was more for L playing with Rico's tricks and less about making her trot on a 20m circle and get my dumb horse off his forehand.

Rico the jumping horse?

The best horse

L has been the first person to come see/ride Rico from the blogosphere, meaning she first "met" him on my blog, which is interesting. I was really hoping Rico would be good for her, not that he's ever bad, he's just sometimes lazy. I was also interested to get her take on him. He's quite trained and very willing, but he's a totally different ride than Ramone and Carlos and trained in a totally different discipline.

The first thing she said when she swung up on him was that he was SUPER wide and called him an overgrown Thelwell pony. That is super accurate. The horse has withers but his lungs spring like no other. You'd think that'd mean there was lots of room for his lungs but the way the horse breathes when he works a little bit, it's very likely that his stomach takes up much of that room.  And his heart, awww. 

Tempis!

Expressive upward transitions

We wandered around the arena and Rico immediately knew that an educated butt was on him. Rico tries to decipher who is on him to determine how much he can get away with not doing. He's always willing, and that's what I adore about him, but he wants to know right away whether he can slack a little bit.

I told L just a few things about him- first, if you teach him that you'll nag him, you'll have the same problems I had two years ago where he'll randomly halt in your work. Second, if you trot before you canter him, he will feel like a broken down crippled horse.

So after the walk, we cantered. And that's when Rico was SUPER confused. L's aids were slightly off for him because of the stirrup length I think so he had no idea what she wanted and kept offering passage instead of canter. He's like I know you're educated and want me to do things but I don't know what you want so here, have this shitty passage.

Finally she cantered him around for warm up and we did a couple single flying changes. Rico has great changes so it's just a matter of keeping him forward before and after and keeping his neck on straight so that you get the response you want. He'd rather do changes than counter canter, so he waits for an aid that sort of seems like a change aid and he's on it.

More tempis, Rico would like to do them as slow as possible

Cantering really helped Rico figure out L's aids, he's a smart horse and does want to be good so he tries to adapt himself to other people to the best of his ability. He still keeps the effort minimal, but he doesn't actively work against his rider, which is something I just adore about him. I feel like it speaks the tiniest bit to my training as well that someone else can just hop on him and school a bunch of the Grand Prix movements.

Back in walk for a bit we talked about piaffe and passage.

I had brought down my driving whip and bamboo to help L get the feel of it, and to get Rico putting a little more effort into them. He's a little uneven in the passage these days and isn't sitting much in the piaffe, which is totally fine, but it'd be nice to improve them a tiny bit whenever I have a good rider on his back.

We started in piaffe and Rico mistook the aid a little bit and reared (woops, but his rears are small and L rode it without a problem) before settling into a pretty good piaffe. The passage was fan-fucking-tastic with the bamboo helping him out and L lost a stirrup because it was so big and we both dissolved into giggles agreeing that the passage is the most fun ever. I never want there to be a time where I don't have a fucking awesome passage to ride. Like, TC had better step up his game as Rico edges closer to full retirement. But for now, Rico's passage will do. And it's a great one despite the unevenness right now.

Piaffe, Rico's favorite part is getting told he did a good job

Next up was piaffe and passage transitions, which she rode without too much of my help! Rico isn't easy to ride those on because some dumb person trained him to walk in them because they kept taking their leg off. I told L not to take her leg off but to slide the leg back to piaffe and then forward to passage. She rode it basically as well as Rico was capable of doing it and he complied easily.

After we finished up with that work, we headed into canter again. I told L about the tempi changes- all you need to do is keep him forward and straight in between the changes and he'll do them. She got some 3s and 4s and even got a 2! We also did some school canter, Rico can't quite canter on the spot anymore but he can still get close.

School canter sorta

We finished up with a walk pirouette and some general trot work, where Rico offered his fancy trot (trot + a little passage feeling to get him up in the shoulders). Rico was only a bit sweaty, so we wandered back to the barn and I grabbed Riot in my dressage saddle so that we could walk down the road and back.

Along the road is a wild plum tree, which hasn't managed to kill me yet, so we stopped for some plums and it felt like the ultimate Saddle Club adventure!

After riding, we tasted some of my dad's beer (he's a chemist and he home brews) and then headed out for lunch. I'm not much of a beer drinker but man a cold beer on a hot day after riding was amazing.

Passage

A bit more passage right before a canter transition, he was a bit
uneven so the video didn't turn out that great

For lunch we went to the local seafood place and surprise, ran into a couple of my friends from my new barn. They opted to join us for our lunch. We talked ponies for a LONG time and realized what a small world it was, all of us knowing some of the same people from various times in our life. It's amazing how getting horse people together always turns even the most introverted of people into the chattiest people.

It was such a great day, we're definitely going to have to do it again! And hopefully go on more Saddle Club Trail Ride adventures too.